Over eighty local residents have sent a petition, written on protective masks, to Hastings Borough Council (HBC), demanding action on air pollution. The petition was handed in to the council on Tuesday 6 December.

The petition – addressed to council leader Peter Chowney – calls on HBC to take steps to monitor air pollution around the site of the proposed Queensway Gateway road (QGR) and to call a halt to road construction until a clear picture of current pollution levels is obtained.

Monitoring carried out near the route of the QGR by local group Combe Haven Defenders [1] shows serious cause for concern over nitrogen dioxide pollution, with diffusion tube monitoring showing a serious breach of lawful levels over four separate months [2]. According to the planning application for the QGR, the road would bring approximately 10,000 extra vehicles a day past the monitoring point [3].

A recent report from the Royal College of Physicians [4] estimates that around 40,000 deaths a year in the UK are attributable to the effects of outdoor air pollution, most of it coming from vehicle emissions. According to the report, ‘[Air pollution] has been linked to cancer, asthma, stroke and heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and changes linked to dementia’.

Spokesperson for Combe Haven Defenders, Emily Johns, said, ‘Our monitoring suggests that there is already a serious problem with air pollution around the route of the Queensway Gateway road. This can only be exacerbated by the predicted huge increase in traffic when the road opens. Air pollution is a public health emergency, and we are calling on the council to take immediate steps not only to monitor the situation, but to put a moratorium on further construction work for the QGR whilst this monitoring is carried out. The residents of Hastings have a right to breathe clean air, and building a new road when there would appear to be a serious problem with air pollution already, is only going to make matters much worse.’

Contact 07565 967 250

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] The first four months of monitoring showed nitrogen dioxide levels of 48.4, 47.9, 50.6 and 47.6 μg/m3. respectively. The EU limit value is 40μg/m3..Although it is acknowledged that further monitoring is needed for a complete picture, these very high levels show there is cause for serious concern over pre-existing air pollution in the area.

HUNDREDS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS DEMAND CAP ON PUBLIC FUNDING FOR NORTH BEXHILL “ACCESS” ROAD
Petition posted to local transport quango in form of five-meter-long “road”

Local residents have sent a petition in the form of a five-meter-long “road”, containing over 370 signatures, to the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) [2] demanding that no more public funds are allocated to the North Bexhill Access Road (NBAR).

The petition, set up by environmental group Combe Haven Defenders, was posted to the Chair of SELEP, Christian Brodie, today.

SELEP has already promised £16.6m in funding for the NBAR [3], a 2.4km road which would run west from a roundabout junction with the Bexhill Hastings Link Road near Glover’s Farm, to join the A269 west of Sidley. It would allow the entire area of countryside between the new road and the A269 to be infilled with business parks and housing.

However, the Combe Haven Defenders believe that the predicted cost of the road may have been underplayed by developer SeaChange Sussex in order to secure funding [4]. They point out that at 2.4km long, the NBAR would cost £6.9m/km. By comparison, the 5.6km Bexhill Hastings Link Road is currently predicted to cost £124.3m, or £22.2m/km – this is very close to the average cost of new roads, according to research by Campaign for Better Transport [5]. In other words, SeaChange is claiming that per kilometre, the NBAR will work out at less than a third of the cost of the link road, or of the average new road.

Spokesperson for Combe Haven Defenders, Anthony Bradnum, said, ‘We simply don’t believe that this road can be built for £16.6m, when all the evidence suggests it should cost around three times as much. Our concern is that SeaChange may have deliberately underplayed the likely cost of the road in order to secure funding, and that once the project is underway they will approach the South East Local Enterprise Partnership or East Sussex County Council for more money. This petition is demanding a firm commitment that no more public money is thrown at this deeply unpopular and environmentally destructive road.’

CENSORED BEXHILL HASTINGS LINK ROAD DOCUMENTS SHOULD BE RELEASED IN FULL SAY CAMPAIGNERSConcerns raised that East Sussex County Council may be misusing Freedom of Information Actto hide embarrassing criticism

A heavily-censored East Sussex County Council (ESCC) document aboutthe £124m Bexhill-Hastings Link Road (BHLR) raises serious issues about transparency and accountability, according to campaigners in Hastings who obtained the document using the Freedom of Information Act.

The document [2] – a ‘Gateway Review’ of the BHLR, written in March 2015 – is supposed to provide ‘an evidence-based snapshot of the project’s status at the time of the review’. However, the version made available to campaigners has been very heavily redacted, with several whole pages blanked out [3].

The Review assessed the project as ‘amber/red’ – defined in the document as ‘Successful delivery of the project is in doubt with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas’. Eight recommendations are made in the report. Of these, three have been totally redacted, and a further one partially redacted.

In its response to the request for the document [4], ESCC stated that it could not release the full document as this would ‘undermine the council’s ability to achieve best value’. However, some of the redactions appear not to relate to value for money, but to quite different areas, such as archaeology. Moreover, some of the redacted information appears to be freely available on ESCC’s website [5], and other information appears to have been redacted solely because it could cause embarrassment, in contravention of official guidance [6].

Andrea Needham, spokesperson for Combe Haven Defenders, who requested the document from ESCC, said, ‘The huge number of redactions in this document suggests that East Sussex County Council may be using – or even misusing – exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act in order to hide serious criticisms of the management of the link road project. The road was built using over £124m of public money, and we have a right to expect transparency and accountability in the use of such funds, especially at a time when the council is making huge cuts to services in other areas. We are calling on ESCC to come clean, and to release the document in its entirety’.

[6] Guidance for public bodies from the Information Commissioner’s Office, responsible for upholding rights to information, states that ‘Information should be disclosed if the only likely harm would be embarrassment to the authority’ (https://ico.org.uk/media/1178/awareness_guidance_5_v3_07_03_08.pdf). Yet one of the redacted areas in the document states ”These are reputation issues for [redacted] ESCC [redacted] which require handling at a senior level. The role should [redacted] using the partnering board and other approaches, and key stakeholder relationship management’ (italics added). The use of the phrase ‘reputation issues’ suggests very strongly that the redaction in this case has been made precisely because release of the information would cause embarrassment to ESCC.

It would appear that there are things that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) doesn’t want us to know about the project management of the Bexhill Hastings Link Road. Look at the image above: does this say accountability and transparency, or a local authority with – perhaps – something to hide?

If the image looks familiar, you may be reminded of the heavily redacted document containing recommendations to the Secretary of State for Transport about whether the link road should be funded. After a long campaign, the Department for Transport was forced to come clean and release the rather embarrassing document: we’re hoping the same will happen in this case.

Background

In March 2015, ESCC commissioned a ‘Gateway Review’ of the link road, in which a number of people who had been involved in the project were interviewed in order to produce ‘an evidence-based snapshot of the project’s status at the time of the review’.

Combe Haven Defenders were given a summary of this document: intrigued, we requested the whole document, under the terms of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act. This is what we received. ESCC told us that we couldn’t see the rest of the document for the following reason:

‘We have considered this issue and have concluded it is in the public interest for local authorities to achieve the most competitive price for the services they wish to purchase, in order to minimise the use of public funds. Disclosure of the redacted information, which includes information relating to commercial strategy, would compromise the Council’s competitive advantage in terms of settlement negotiations and also in terms of final price. This would undermine the Council’s ability to achieve best value. We will not be releasing this information.’

Competitive advantage?

The document makes eight recommendations; of these, three have been completely censored and a further one partially so. Despite ESCC’s claim that the redactions were justified on the grounds of ‘competitive advantage’ (‘prejudice to commercial interests’ is an exemption allowed by the Freedom of Information Act), recommendation 3, which has been heavily redacted, appears to relate in large part to archaeology, whilst others seem to bear little relation to the claimed grounds of commercial interests.

Gateway Review recommendations

Redacting publicly available information?

Recommendation 1 is about cost scenarios. The last sentence reads:

‘In January 2015, the ESCC Cabinet established a [redacted] to cover four sets of risks across the capital programme, one of which was the uncertainty about delivery of projects, including the BHLR’.

As it turns out, there was only one Cabinet meeting in January 2015 so it only took a moment to find the relevant documents on the ESCC website. If one looks at the report prepared for that meeting (item 3.23), one finds a decision to allocate £10m to risk management, including the risk of uncertainty about delivery of projects including the BHLR. This would appear to be the information redacted from the Gateway Review. ESCC therefore appears to have redacted information which is freely available on its own website, which shows that they have gone far beyond what is reasonable in trying to prevent us from having access to public information.

Embarrassing?
Guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office on exemptions allowed by the FoI Act states that ‘Information should be disclosed if the only likely harm would be embarrassment to the authority‘ (italics added). Recommendation 5 of the Gateway Review is mostly redacted, but the part which is not reads:

‘These are reputation issues for [redacted] ESCC [redacted] which require handling at a senior level. The role should [redacted] using the partnering board and other approaches, and key stakeholder relationship management’.

The use of the term ‘reputation issues’ suggests very strongly that this redaction has been made not because of commercial interests, but for the sole reason that it would be embarrassing for ESCC for the information to be released.

Successful delivery in doubt
Curiously, we were allowed to know that the ‘Delivery Confidence Assessment’ was ‘amber/red’: this is defined in the document as: ‘Successful delivery of the project is in doubt with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas’. That assessment, combined with the huge level of redactions, makes us suspicious that ESCC is misusing the exemptions allowed in the FoI Act in order to keep from us information which we have a right to know.

Internal review
We have requested an internal review of the redactions in the document. This will be done by ESCC; if we’re still not happy, we can then make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The problem we’re facing, however, is what former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld might call ‘known unknowns’ (or should that be ‘unknown unknowns’?): how can you make a case that information such as the redacted recommendations should be disclosed, when you don’t have the first idea what they’re about?

We’re waiting with bated breath for the results of the internal review. Whatever the outcome, one of the known knowns would appear to be that East Sussex County Council has got something to hide.

Hastings council decision to have annual briefing of publicly funded company ignored for over three years

Local residents have expressed their concern that Hastings Borough Council (HBC) is failing in its duty to hold publicly-funded regeneration company SeaChange Sussex to account. Over three years after Hastings Borough Council made a decision to require the Chief Executive of SeaChange Sussex to provide an annual briefing to the council, no such briefing has taken place.

In April 2013, HBC’s Cabinet made a decision that an ‘annual briefing from the Chief Executive of SeaChange’ should be ‘made part of the annual Programme of Member training’ [3]. However, a Freedom of Information (FoI) request submitted almost three years later by a Hastings resident has revealed that ‘Due to other commitments, the Member Training and Development Group have not been able to schedule a briefing’ [4].

The FoI request goes on to say that, ‘The council’s appointed Director on the Board of SeaChange (currently Councillor Poole), continues to attend quarterly meetings of Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Services, and members have the opportunity to ask for updates about the work of SeaChange as part of their performance monitoring role if they wish’.

However, an inspection of the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Services [5] show that in the past three years, no member of the committee appears to have asked for such an update, or raised a single question about SeaChange’s performance.

SeaChange Sussex is a ‘not for profit economic regeneration company’ [6], funded entirely from public money. In the past few years, it has received tens of millions of pounds for projects including the North Queensway Innovation Park, the Havelock Place development in Hastings town centre, the Bexhill Enterprise Park and Enviro 21 [7]. Some of these projects – notably the North Queensway Innovation Park [2] and Enviro 21– appear to have failed to attract the predicted occupiers or created the jobs that SeaChange claimed when the projects were first announced.

Spokesperson for Combe Haven Defenders, Anthony Bradnum, said, ‘SeaChange Sussex has received millions of pounds of public money, and in several cases appears not to have lived up to the promises it made in terms of job creation. It is deeply worrying that Hastings Borough Council seems to have no interest in holding SeaChange to account, by scrutinising their projects and ensuring that the public money poured into the company is being properly spent. We’re calling on Hastings Borough Council to immediately institute a programme to scrutinise the work of SeaChange Sussex.’
Contact 07565 967 250

Combe Haven Defenders have launched a petition calling on Hastings Borough Council to institute air pollution monitoring near the route of the planned Queensway Gateway road.

Unconvinced by SeaChange Sussex’s claims that the Queensway Gateway road (QGR) would not cause unlawful levels of air pollution, we have been monitoring air quality near the route of the proposed road. Our findings so far suggest that there is at the very least a cause for concern which requires further monitoring by Hastings Borough Council (HBC). We have launched a petition calling on HBC to institute a programme of air quality monitoring on Sedlescombe Road North, and to require SeaChange Sussex to halt any further construction work on the QGR for six months, until a clear picture of air pollution in the area can be obtained.

The background
Those with longish memories will remember that the first planning application for the QGR was passed in February 2015, then revoked the following June after a legal challenge which demonstrated that SeaChange’s own figures showed that the road would cause unlawful levels of air pollution. Subsequently, SeaChange discovered – fortuitously – that there had been ‘methodological errors’ in the original figures and that having corrected these supposed errors, all was well – there would be no air pollution. All but three of the planning committee councillors accepted this conjuring trick, and the planning application was passed again in December 2015. Permission to apply for a judicial review was refused, and the matter remains in the appeal court.

Planning committee meeting for QGR: planning and air quality consultants reassure councillors that air pollution is no longer a problem

Citizen monitoring
In the meantime, CHD decided that we’d see for ourselves if there was an issue with air pollution. Working with the Network for Clean Air, we put up diffusion tubes at various spots. A month later, the tubes were sent off for analysis. When the results arrived, it turned out that the one nearest the proposed QGR/A21 junction was considerably over the EU limit for nitrogen dioxide – 48.4μg/m3, where the limit value is 40μg/m3. The limit value is taken as the mean when monthly levels are averaged over a year, so just one month’s monitoring is insufficient to say definitively that the levels are over the limit. However, it is a clear indication that there may be problems in that area, and that ongoing monitoring should be put in place.

Nearest diffusion tube: Bohemia Road

SeaChange appear to have made no effort to undertake air pollution monitoring of their own prior to putting in the planning application for the QGR. Their figures were based on HBC’s monitoring equipment: the particular monitoring site SeaChange chose for the purpose of the planning application was on Bohemia Road, some two miles south of the proposed new road. Had they actually monitored air pollution near the proposed route of the road, the outcome might have been very different.

10,000 extra vehicles a day
SeaChange’s traffic assessment would appear to suggest that, if built, the QGR would channel 50% more vehicles – some 10,000 a day – past the junction with the A21. If the air pollution turns out to be already significantly over the limit, then an extra 10,000 vehicles a day can only make the air pollution even more serious. The deaths of 40,000 people a year in the UK are attributable to air pollution: for the sake of the health of local residents, the QGR should not be allowed to go ahead if the area is already well over the pollution limit.

Halt to construction work and revocation of planning permission?

We are callling for a halt to any further construction work until a full programme of air pollution monitoring has been completed. If it turns out that there is a serious issue, then we are demanding that planning permission for the QGR be revoked. Please join us in calling for the right of the people of Hastings to breathe clean air!

Local developer fails to explain why Queensway Gateway Road budget has dropped from £15m to £6m

Hastings residents are demanding to know why the budget for the Queensway Gateway Road (QGR) has dropped from £15m to £6m – a decrease of 60%. A Freedom of Information request made by local environmental group Combe Haven Defenders, asking to see the budget for the road, was refused [2]. The same request was made to SeaChange Sussex, but no response was received.

The QGR is being funded from the government’s Local Growth Fund, administered by the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP). An East Sussex County Council document from June 2015 confirms that the QGR was allocated £15m in funding [3]. The business case for the QGR describes the £15m as ‘reduced capital costs’, suggesting that the original cost estimate may have been even higher [4].

However, minutes of a SELEP meeting from November 2015 [5] state that ‘Sea Change now think the [QGR] will be delivered for £6m’. The minutes go on: ‘East Sussex County Council/ Sea Change looking to re-allocate the £9m ‘saving’ to North Bexhill Access Rd’. There is no explanation as to why the estimated cost has come down by 60%. According to the Campaign for Better Transport, the average cost of new roads is £24,650/m [6], which would mean that the 600m QGR should cost around £14.8m.

Combe Haven Defenders spokesperson Andrea Needham said, ‘The Queensway Gateway Road is being funded entirely with public money. We do not understand how a road which was costed at £15m – which would appear to be a reasonably accurate figure, based on the average per metre cost of new roads – can suddenly only cost £6m, allowing the extra money to be put towards another unpopular local road, the North Bexhill Access Road. We believe SeaChange Sussex has some very serious questions to answer about the funding of both these roads, and we are disappointed that a body which relies entirely on public money is apparently not answerable to the public.’

For the past year, local artist and Combe Haven Defenders member, Emily Johns, has been drawing the Hollington Valley local wildlife site, which lies in the path of the Queensway Gateway road. Her artwork will be exhibited in Hastings in May: please come along, and don’t miss Emily’s talk on ‘The Art of Protest’ (all details below).

Emily has captured the site from the end of one winter to the end of the next, documenting the struggle between Seachange Sussex, Hastings Council and environmental campaigners over the building of yet another road.

Emily describes the work she has produced as ‘Not your idyllic Spring Watch in a Sussex bluebell wood but an observation of the processes that drive out protected species to prepare the land for tarmac. The drawing is a record of place, an act of witness of a heavy footprint, a capturing of spirit’.

The crowdfunder, launched to help with legal costs, has reached 77% of its target. It would be great if we could get to the target by 18 April.Please consider making a donation, however small, to this important case: see here for details. Note that whilst appealing the case may not stop the roadbuilders, most of the money raised if the crowdfunding target is met will go towards the cost of the case so far, whilst a small amount will go towards the appeal.

The application for judicial review of the decision by Hastings Borough Council to grant planning permission for the Queensway gateway road has been refused. The High Court ruled that there was an ‘inconsistency’ in the council’s case, but that this did not amount to sufficient grounds to allow a judicial review.

However, lawyers believe there may be a case for taking the case to the Court of Appeal. This would, very sadly, not stop SeaChange from carrying on building the road, but might be a stepping stone towards making an important legal point which could be of use to other campaigners.

Summary of situation

After the planning permission was quashed in June 2015 due to air pollution issues, SeaChange submitted new traffic and air quality reports, citing ‘methodological errors’ in the originals. The revised figures showed that the predicted air pollution from the QGR would now be fractionally under critical levels. The planning committee accepted these figures and passed the application for the second time in December 2015.

Emissions factors

In the revised figures SeaChange used emissions factors from a later year than those they used in their original figures (see here for more information on emissions factors and how they impacted on the air pollution levels in this case). However, there is evidence that the predicted decrease in air pollution from road transport (reflected in emissions factors for future years) is not materialising in the real world, and therefore there is a strong case to be made that more conservative emissions factors should be used to predict likely air pollution.

If a more conservative approach had been adopted (as was the case in the original planning application), predicted air pollution caused by the QGR would have exceeded critical levels. The planning committee was not informed about this.

You must be choking, July 2015

Council misinformed?

The application for judicial review centred on the fact that with the road likely to cause air pollution just below critical limits, the Council was materially misinformed by not being told about the inconsistencies in approach (with regard to emissions factors) which allowed SeaChange to produce figures just below the critical level.

No right to challenge the merits

However, the High Court stated that there is no right to challenge the merits of a planning decision – that is, was it right for the planning committee to reach the decision it did and thus to grant permission for a road that will be just below critical pollution levels? It appears that a decision can only be challenged, on this basis, if the Council erred by failing to take into account a particular law (as in the first – successful – legal challenge where the law on air pollution was not considered).

Court of Appeal?

The claimant (Gabriel Carlyle) is considering proceeding to the Court of Appeal. Although an appeal, even if successful, may not stop the Queensway Gateway, there is a bigger issue at stake which may have implications for other communities experiencing poor air quality and facing destructive new roads. That is, that international law ratified by the UK states that people should have the right to challenge the merits of a decision. However, until our national courts accept this, that right cannot, it would appear, be enforced. Pursuing this case to the next level (the Court of Appeal) may be a stepping stone on the way to making cases such as this arguable in English courts.

Crowdfunder

The crowdfunder, launched to help with legal costs, has reached 77% of its target. It would be great if we could get to the target in the next few days. Please consider making a donation, however small, to this important case: see here for details.

NEARLY 250 PEOPLE SIGN PETITION TO DEMAND NO MORE PUBLIC FUNDS FOR THE NORTH BEXHILL ACCESS ROAD

Nearly 250 people have signed a petition demanding that no more public money should be allocated to the controversial North Bexhill Access Road (NBAR).

The petition, set up by environmental group Combe Haven Defenders on the 38 Degrees website [2], is addressed jointly to Christian Brodie, chair of the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) – which has already promised £16.6m in funding for the NBAR [3] – and to Keith Glazier, leader of East Sussex County Council.

Combe Haven Defenders say they believe that the predicted cost of the road may have been underplayed by developer SeaChange Sussex in order to secure funding. They point out that at 2.4km long, the NBAR would cost £6.9m/km. By comparison, the 5.6km Bexhill Hastings Link Road is currently predicted to cost £124.3m, or £22.2m/km – this is very close to the average cost of new roads, according to research by Campaign for Better Transport [4]. In other words, SeaChange is claiming that per kilometre, the NBAR will work out at less than a third of the cost of the link road.

Planning permission for the NBAR was granted by Rother District Council in February [5]. The road would run west from a roundabout junction with the Bexhill Hastings Link Road near Glover’s Farm, to join the A269 near Freezeland Lane. It would allow the entire area of countryside between the new road and the A269 to be infilled with business parks and housing.

Spokesperson for Combe Haven Defenders, Andrea Needham, said, ‘We believe there is a very strong case to be made that SeaChange has deliberately played down the likely cost of the NBAR in order to secure funding. We simply do not believe that the road can be built for less than a third of the per kilometre cost of the link road. We are concerned that once the project is underway, SeaChange will come back to SELEP or to East Sussex County Council for more funding. Our petition demands that SELEP and ESCC give a firm commitment not to allocate a single penny more of public money to this destructive road.’